A House by the Side of the Road (11 page)

“Stop. You've done enough. I'll clean up. You can drop by sometime and pick up your dishes. Or I'll bring them over.”

“Great,” he said. “The guys tease me when I show up with dishpan hands. But before I get going, I noticed a dip in your dining room ceiling. You got a leak in the attic?”

Meg lifted her shoulders. “I don't think so, but I don't
know.
” She walked into the dining room and stood peering up at the ceiling. The dip was barely noticeable. “It looks all right to me.”

“Show me the attic stairs,” he said. “I'll just go up and check it out.”

Meg found it odd that she enjoyed his good-tempered bossiness. She had bridled and, more often than not, flat-out balked when Jim had told her what to do. Jack, however, had no arrogance in his voice, just an easy confidence that they were of like minds.

The door at the foot of the stairs was ajar. She pulled it open all the way and climbed the creaking steps with him. He paced off a distance from one wall and pushed a foot against the floor.

“What?” she asked.

“I think you're all right,” he said, looking up at the rafters. “But I'd like to check again sometime right after a rain.” He smiled at her and indicated his foot as he pressed it downward again. “This isn't a thorough analysis.”

Meg pointed around the room at small metal boxes that stuck up through the planks that formed the floor. “What are those? Those things the pipes lead to?”

“Junction boxes,” he said. “For wiring. The wires are in the pipes.” He glanced at her. “You know, junctions. Where things come together.”

“The wires are in the pipes? Doesn't wiring go through conduit?”

He laughed at her. “Get used to living in an old house, babe,” he said. “Conduit hadn't been invented when this work was done.” He looked critically around the room. “I'm not sure if the cotton gin had been. You know, the boxes should be covered, especially in a house this old. Want me to get an electrician to come by?”

Meg shook her head. “Not right now,” she said, trying to think about her dwindling checking account, trying not to think about his casual and probably meaningless familiarity. “Soon, though, if it's important.”

He looked around again. “It is. Just don't store stacks of magazines up here in the meantime.”

“Heck, no,” said Meg. “What would I use for an end table?”

“Right,” he said. “Let's go feed leftover ham to The Beast.”

Meg had to admire him. Not many people would have been willing to make an effort to become friends with such an unappealing animal. She had, of course, but the dog hadn't been aggressive to her. Jack squatted and held out a hand. The dog regarded him suspiciously.

“Don't glare at her,” said Meg.

“That's not a glare. That's me not showing fear.”

“Oh,” said Meg. “Well, shift your gaze.”

“I think I see a friendship blooming,” she said as Jack stood, wiping his hand on his hip. “You are a brave soul.”

“Who has to get crackin',” he said. “I promised to get the Delaneys' living room sanded by noon. God willing and the creek don't rise, I will. But barely.”

He opened the passenger's door of his pickup and lifted out a beautifully made wren house. “Housewarming,” he said. “It just needs a post in a shady spot.”

“It's wonderful!” said Meg. “Deutsch colonial, is it? But do wrens actually care if their homes are sanded and stained?”

“Maybe not yet. But good taste is largely a matter of exposure to beautiful things. Next year, they'll be back, educated by their experience and unwilling to live in anything but the best.” He pitched his deep voice high. “‘No, Seymour, I won't even consider this … this
slum
after that lovely place we had last year! You just keep flying, mister!'”

Meg was still grinning as he maneuvered the truck around in the driveway and waved good-bye. When she turned to go into the house, she nearly tripped over the dog and realized for the first time that the animal hadn't left her side.

“Now what are you so clingy for all of a sudden?” she asked.

Nine

Jane dipped a brush into white paint, smoothed it on the rim of the can, and stroked it against the fence.

“Fresh paint looks so clean,” she said.

“It sure does,” said Meg. “And you're doing that very nicely, but I'm worried about your sweater.”

“I won't make a mess.”

“That's what they all say,” said Meg. “It's virtually impossible to paint anything, even a birdhouse, without making some sort of mess. You've already got paint on your hair.”

“I do?”

“Yup. So let me get you an old sweatshirt. That's too nice a sweater to ruin.”

When Meg came back out with a sweatshirt, Jane stood up and shrugged carefully out of her cardigan. “It's my favorite sweater. I wear it all the time.”

Meg could see why. It was hand-knit, made of a thick yarn in periwinkle blue. The color was good with the child's burnished hair. “It's beautiful. Did your mom make it?”

“No. She sews things, but she can't knit or crochet. Mrs. Ehrlich made it for me.” Jane pulled the sweatshirt on and, when her head had emerged, continued as she worked her arms into the sleeves. “She was teaching me to crochet. She'd already taught me to embroider. I can do all kinds of embroidery stitches. I embroidered a toaster cover for her that looked like a little house with a door and windows and flower boxes on the windowsills.”

She picked up her brush and started working again, with Meg painting alongside. “You miss her, don't you,” said Meg.

Jane sighed. “A lot.”

They worked for a while in silence. Then Jane spoke quietly. “Did you ever notice that if somebody old dies, people just say, ‘Oh, dear, that's too bad.' If somebody young dies, they say, ‘No! How awful! What did she die of?'”

“But that's just because it's more shocking when a young person dies, don't you think?” asked Meg.

“
I
think it's shocking when anybody dies who shouldn't have,” said Jane. She turned an accusing eye on Meg. “Did you ever ask what she died of?”

Meg was taken aback. “No, I don't think I did,” she said. “I guess I just assumed it was … you know, because her heart stopped.”

“Well,
every
body's heart stops when they die,” said Jane. “That's
not
very specific.”

“No,” said Meg. “You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't think about it carefully. What
did
she die of?”

Jane moved down several pickets, taking her paint can with her. “She had a jumpy heart. She said her medicine made it all right. So she must not have taken her medicine, and that's what she died of. I feel mad about it all the time, but I shouldn't have been mad at you. You didn't even know her.”

“It takes a while after someone dies to stop being mad about it,” said Meg. “Sometimes it takes a long time.”

“But I'm not just mad she died,” said Jane. “I'm mad because nobody was watching out to make sure it didn't happen. All she had to do was take her medicine, and she didn't. And so she died, and now one of the people who should have been more careful of her is living in her house and another one is using her best silver and lots of them have her stocks. It isn't fair.”

“But you're the one who got her silver, and you
were
watching out for her.”

“Somebody else got her
best
silver,” said Jane. “Probably somebody who should've been helping her not forget. She had lots of beautiful things, you know, so greedy people might have been happy she died instead of being careful that she wouldn't. And
somebody
got a whole house.”

“Michael Mulcahy couldn't drive a forty-mile round trip every morning and every evening just to make sure his aunt took her medicine, could he?” asked Meg in what she hoped was a mild and reasonable tone. “And he doesn't seem the type who'd rejoice over someone's death.”

Jane kept painting. “He could pick up a telephone, couldn't he?” She was not giving in, and Meg had to admit she had a point.

“But there's no reason to think she
didn't
take her medicine, honey,” she said. “Medicine isn't magic; it won't keep a person alive forever.” She glanced at the girl and found her looking seriously back, the brush dangling, momentarily ignored, from her hand.

“I think she forgot,” said Jane. “She was worried about something, really worried, and maybe she was thinking about that instead of her medicine. She started forgetting a lot, so much that she had to have tricks to help her remember things. She even forgot her favorite silver box.”

“Her favorite silver box?”

Jane sat back on the grass and stretched out her legs, then resumed her crouched position and went back to work. “She was telling me about how fancy some people's houses used to be and the things they used to use, like napkin rings and little trays to put calling cards on and fancy bottles for ink. And rich ladies had jewel caskets. That's what they were called,
caskets.
Weird, huh?”

“But it's a different meaning,” said Meg. “Just a small box for something valuable.”

“I know. I said, ‘Were those for buried treasure?' And she told me what you said. She still had some that her husband inherited. Her favorite was a silver one his mother got on her twelfth birthday, and she sent me up to the attic to get it. But when I brought it down, she just kept looking at it and looking, and she said it wasn't the way she remembered. It made her really unhappy to forget. She had to go lie down and couldn't help me study for the spelling test.”

“Then maybe she did forget her medicine,” said Meg. “But it still doesn't seem fair to blame people who may not even have realized her memory had gotten so bad.”

The girl was silent for a few moments, then spoke again. “Mom says it was just ‘her time.' Maybe it was. But it was too soon.”

It always is, thought Meg. When you love somebody.

“How come your mom says that Harding has no reliable moral center?” she asked, when enough silence had passed to rob the change in topics of abruptness.

“He steals things,” said Jane, giggling. “He's really good at it.”

Meg carefully removed a small tuft of dog hair that had blown onto the wet paint and wiped her fingers on the grass. “Like what?”

“He opens the refrigerator, for one thing,” said Jane. “I mean, he used to. Didn't you ever wonder why Mom puts a big clamp on the refrigerator doors when she leaves the house if he's indoors?”

“I guess I never saw her leave the house when he was indoors,” said Meg. “He opens the
refrigerator?
”

“Yeah. And he eats everything he can stuff into himself and hides everything else.” Jane moved down another picket. “One time he ate a pound of raw hamburger, a loaf of whole-wheat bread, half a roast chicken, a package of cream cheese, and the rest of the eggs. He ate the eggs in the living room. On the rug. Mom was
really
mad.”

“I'll bet!” said Meg.

“And then we found a tub of margarine in the hall closet in Teddy's gym bag under his cleats and a bag of salad in Dad's fishing net in the basement and a package of hot dogs in the trash can in the bathroom. And one time, he came with me to Mrs. Ehrlich's and he went in the kitchen while we were in the living room and he ate a whole plate of cookies off the table
and
her evening pills. I didn't take him there anymore.”

Meg noticed that Jane's eyes were bright with laughter. She could talk about Mrs. Ehrlich without necessarily descending into angry misery.

“Does the clamp work?” asked Meg.

“Oh, sure,” said Jane. “When we remember to put it on.”

*   *   *

Jane had gone home for supper, and Meg was pressing plastic wrap around the brushes when Mike pulled into the driveway. The dog, who had been lying on the porch, got up and ran toward the fence, barking.

“Ah, we meet again,” said Mike, moving his hands off the top of the pickets and putting them in his pockets. He was wearing pleated trousers and a soft, cream-colored shirt with a banded collar. Meg thought he looked yummy.

“Those down by you are dry,” she said. “But don't touch anything much farther along.”

John Eppler's car passed, going toward his house, and Meg lifted a hand in greeting, but the man's eyes remained fixed on the road, and no wave was returned. That's odd, she thought.

Mike indicated the dog. “I don't know why she hates me,” he said.

“She probably doesn't,” replied Meg. “But she doesn't seem to have much use for men. And you did try to grab her. For all she knows, you're a vivisectionist.”

“That line of work never appealed to me,” he said. “Until now.”

“Don't be mean. Come inside and have some coffee. I've got three or four of Christine's cookies left, too. Just enough to get you through until dinner.”

She fixed the dog with a stern look and said, “Enough!” The dog's barking turned to a soft, intermittent growl.

“I'll hold her. She's not trained yet, so that's the only way to guarantee safe passage. Go on in, and I'll finish cleaning up here and join you. The coffee's in the left-hand cupboard next to the sink.”

As the screen door closed behind him, Meg remembered the condition of the house. She hadn't vacuumed since she arrived, and the lunch dishes hadn't been washed. She shrugged mentally. Mike didn't seem the type to care and, if he did, tough. She hadn't invited him.

When she pushed off her shoes on the porch and went in, he was looking through her tapes in the living room. “I started the coffee,” he said. “Nice range of stuff you have here, and a lot of it. You haven't made the big switch to compact disk, I see.”